Once you finish with those games (and that'll take anywhere from 30-40 hours) there's Portal, an impressive puzzle game that'll both amaze and frustrate you. Basically, you play as a test subject that, at the prompt of a sterile sounding voice with humorous dialogue, complete a series of challenges using a device that creates portals almost everywhere, allowing you to pass through walls and fall through floors. The effect looks just as stunning as in 2K Games' Prey, if not more so since you have greater freedom in a portals' placement. You'll spend the first few minutes marveling at the technology, especially as you watch your character walk through the portal and pop out the other side, which creates the illusion that you're right behind them, when in fact you're someplace else entirely.

Portal takes a great deal of concentration and will at times piss you off, not because of any glitches, but from your puzzled brain. Figuring out where to create the one portal that'll allow you to proceed may take you anywhere from a few minutes to an hour or more, but it's time well spent. Gamers may criticize it for being a tech demo (which is partially true -- Valve intends to utilize this technology in future games, possibly the next Half-Life 2 Episode), but it has enough depth to stand on its own and complement The Orange Box's other games.

Finally, we come to Team Fortress 2, a sweet multiplayer only shooter that is simplistic in design and almost impossible to put down. When compared to other games such as Halo 3, Gears of War and Resistance: Fall of Man, TF2 comes up short in terms of options. Capture the Flag and Control Point offer little in the way of variety, and six maps seem laughable in the face of Halo 3's 11. But we love this game nonetheless. The brutal, fast paced gunplay sends enemies running and limbs flying, while the nine unique classes (Scout, Soldier, Pyro, Demoman, Heavy Weapons Guy, Engineer, Medic, Sniper and Spy) have signature abilities and weapons, making for lots of variety and experimentation. In addition, Valve did a masterful job with the graphics, creating gorgeous cell shaded maps that provide a slick comic book presentation that goes well with the mayhem. However, above all else, TF2 is a hell of a lot of fun. If you want to obsess over stats you can, but it's designed for those who need to see their rankings and those that just want to kill people.